Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUbayd al-Wāḥid. He was a jurist (faqīh) from Baghdad. He was also the author of poems containing obscene words. He became famous as Sarf ad-Dellāl. He is the killer of Ḡawānīzū al-Riqāʿatayn. He has a qaṣīda ending with the maqṣūra (yāʾ). With this qaṣīda, he also made a taʿrīḍ (satirical allusion) on the maqṣūra of Ibn Burayd. The qaṣīda is as follows:
“A thousand loads of clothes
Are more useful for a poor person than gathering seeds.
As for the one who cooks the rooster without cutting it,
The rooster flies out of the pot and goes as far as it can.
To the one who has a needle stuck in his eyes,
Ask him at that moment: how is blindness?
A beard is a hair growing on the face.
The tuft of hair growing from the nape is the same thing.”
He ended this qaṣīda with a couplet that caused envy:
“Verily, the one who is neither knowledgeable nor seizes the opportunity of wealth,
He and the dog are in the same condition.”
Sarīʿ ad-Dellāl came to Egypt in the year 412 AH. There he praised the caliph al-Ẓāhir li-Iʿzāzi d-Dīn Allāh b. Ḥākim and died in the month of Rajab of that year.